Oklahoma EHR Largely Unscathed by Tornado

Unlike paper medical records that Hurricane Katrina soaked and batted about in the Gulf Coast winds in 2005, electronic health records (EHR) from the Oklahoma City area remained intact and available throughout most of the recent tornado that struck the suburb of Moore, reported ModernHealthcare.com.

Oklahoma's Secure Medical Records Transfer Network (SMRTnet) stores records for more than 2 million people and connects 90% of the hospital beds in the area, and while communication between SMRTnet and Norman Regional Health System (NRHS) was down for 7 hours at one point, it remained open to other networked hospitals. Many patients from Moore Medical Center had been evacuated to the Norman Regional Hospital and HealthPlex about 10 miles away; both are part of NRHS.

Despite the diffusion of Moore patients from their local facility to places across the metro area, spokespeople for the hospital systems said they were able to get needed information to providers via SMRTnet.